


can you feel the weight of it?

by foundfamilyvevo



Category: Julie and The Phantoms (TV)
Genre: Dissociation, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Gen, Gen or Pre-Slash, M/M, Pre-Canon, Protective Bobby | Trevor Wilson, Reggie Peters Has Bad Parents (Julie and The Phantoms), Stuffed Toys, Sunset Curve (Julie and The Phantoms)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-12
Updated: 2021-02-12
Packaged: 2021-03-17 00:02:25
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,142
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29216136
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/foundfamilyvevo/pseuds/foundfamilyvevo
Summary: "I got this for you," Bobby tries to explain, tries to keep his tone light as a feather, "Just - saw it and thought of you?" He opens the bag and pulls out the stuffed dog, still as stupidly plush and ridiculously cute as he remembers it, holding it out for Reggie to take and praying to God he doesn't look like as much of an idiot as he feels.Or, Bobby buys Reggie a soft toy, and then overthinks all his choices.
Relationships: Bobby | Trevor Wilson & Alex Mercer & Luke Patterson & Reggie Peters, Bobby | Trevor Wilson & Reggie Peters, Bobby | Trevor Wilson/Reggie Peters
Comments: 27
Kudos: 137





	can you feel the weight of it?

**Author's Note:**

> you can read this as ship or gen i think? whichever is your jam either is perfectly valid. i subscribe to the church of bobby is ace and at this stage cannot be converted away from my religion so even though it's not super important to this fic i feel like i should say it lol. warning for dissociation, details in the end notes.
> 
> huge shoutout to tumblr user @sweetheartreggie for co-creating this story and then beta-ing this prose, and also for being amazing all-around. this boggie does not exist without you kat!!! title is from sleeping at last's 'i'll keep you safe'.

Bobby stares, and the beady eyes stare back at him.

He's been here for at least a few minutes. Fully aware of how out of place he looks, standing in the aisle of bright colours and fluffy fabrics, he knows his best move would be to hurry up and move on before he gets investigated for shoplifting.

It's just that his palms are sweating, and his stomach feels tight, and the floppy-eared, unbelievably soft, golden ball of comfort is staring back at him, partially pleading, and yet somehow dubious.

Like the stuffed puppy is asking Bobby, _really? You're going to exchange your own money, which you earned with hours of your time, for this toy, intended for children? You're really going to buy me for a sixteen-year-old?_

That being said, Bobby has never let what other people think of him affect what he does before. He is militantly opposed to being controlled by other peoples' expectations, and so he rebelliously grabs the dog by the back of its absurdly soft collar and takes it to the counter.

Sure, he can't make eye contact with the cashier, but one thing at a time. He still buys the damn toy.

—

Then it sits in its bag at the foot of Bobby's bed for a week.

How do you give someone a gift just for no reason? He should have thought this through. Reggie's birthday isn't for months, but he can't wait til then. He feels like this toy is haunting him from the corner of his room, even when he can't see it.

Reggie's going to think it's stupid. _Bobby_ thinks he's being stupid.

"Hey, uh," he says to Luke, that Thursday evening, while they're both tuning their guitars and waiting for the other boys. "I gotta ask you something."

Immediately, Luke looks nervous. "Have I been staying over too often? I can back it off."

"No, no," Bobby assures him, twisting the peg on his E string so he doesn't have to look at him. "I bought a gift for Reg."

He doesn't even have to look up to know that Luke's broken into a huge, shit-eating grin, because Luke says, "Oooh, a _gift,"_ and his tone gives it away.

Bobby's stomach lurches uncomfortably. Reggie's going to think the same thing. It's going to be a big fuss. This whole thing was a mistake. "I'm not afraid to put you in an early grave, Patterson."

A little cowed, Luke says, "Okay, bro, sorry. What did you want to ask?"

This peg really doesn't need to be twisted further. Bobby twists it further. "Can I give him a gift, you think?"

There's such a long silence that Bobby glances up, and he sees Luke giving him a strange look, head tilted to the side and eyebrows furrowed. "I mean. Uh. Is this a trick question? Why wouldn't you be able to get Reggie a present?"

Suddenly, Bobby's feeling dumb for different reasons. It feels obvious now that Luke says it, that he's overthinking, that of course it's not weird, that it's weird that he _feels_ so weird, and now Luke _knows_ that Bobby felt weird, which makes him feel _weirder_. It's stupid to put off giving Reggie his gift, obviously, because it shouldn't be a big deal in the first place.

"Why?" Luke asks again. "What did you get him?"

Bobby just goes back to tuning, strums a few chords, and says, "When was Alex coming, again? I wanted to run through _Get Lost_ with him one more time before the gig."

Luke demonstrates that Bobby has trained them all well, because he goes with the change of topic, and doesn't push about Reggie's gift any further.

—

It was Alex who had told Bobby about how Reggie's parents got rid of his toys when he was little. Mostly because Reggie always holds something when he sleeps - a pillow, for example, or his bass, or their lead vocalist Luke Patterson.

"It was stupid," Alex had muttered to him, while Luke and Reggie snored steadily on the couch, mid-afternoon on a Sunday during what was supposed to be a band practice, "we were so little, still, but they always got mad at him for carrying his teddy around? Then eventually his dad just - threw them all out, I guess, I don't know. I used to lend him mine when he came to stay with my folks, until I got too old for them, too."

"They're assholes," Bobby had sighed. More tired than angry. Everything he learned about Reggie's parents made him feel bone-weary and sore; he could only imagine how Luke and Alex felt after years and years of watching the situation slowly degrade.

A wry smile of agreement twisted Alex's pretty mouth. Bobby knew he and Alex didn't see eye to eye on everything, but when it came to looking out for their boys, Bobby thought they were as much on the same page as they would ever be about anything.

"At least he's got Mr. Cuddles himself now," Bobby added, mostly to lighten the mood. Alex, also familiar with Luke's inability to stop cozying up to his friends, laughed slightly too loud. Luke and Reggie stirred, and before long they were back behind their guitars, rubbing their eyes and yawning.

When Reggie knuckled the back of his eye with his sleeve, Bobby imagined little Reggie, Alex's best friend from primary school, doing the same thing, and then pretended right away that he hadn't because of how it made his stomach hurt.

—

It's stupid to put it off any longer, Bobby thinks, but he does anyway. A few days go by, and then a week, and each time he thinks he could possibly just give Reggie the damn toy, the other boys are there, and he would never, ever, ever hear the end of it if the other boys were _there_ , so he keeps pushing it off, waiting for a perfect moment.

—

Maybe Reggie turning up at his house totally exhausted, pale, with dark rings under his eyes, gaze barely there, isn't the perfect moment, but it's the moment Bobby gets.

He pushes the door further open, and Reggie blinks slowly, looking at Bobby like he doesn't fully understand. This has been happening more and more recently, Reggie turning up at all hours of the night just completely checked out - not crying, not visibly upset, but hardly present with Bobby at all. In all honesty, it scares Bobby shitless.

"Jesus, Reg," he says, taking in Reggie's disheveled appearance. It's freezing outside, and Reggie looks like he's walked, which Bobby knows is a decent distance, but he's also barely trembling. "Come inside, it's fucking cold out there."

With some brief coaxing, the lightest touch to the outside of Reggie's wrist (and god, he's so cold, Bobby swallows down his worry like a damn cough drop), Reggie does follow him in. Pulling out a chair, Bobby gets him to sit down and sets about making something warm. Bobby's parents have left some cheap sachets of soup in the pantry, the kind you mix with hot water until it turns into something vaguely resembling food, as though that alone will be enough to sustain their seventeen-year-old son while they're gone for god knows how long. Fortunately, it looks like exactly what Reggie needs right now.

"Deep breaths," he reminds Reggie, though it's hard to know if Reggie is feeling anxious or even uncomfortable. Bobby feels clumsy with Alex's anxiety, doesn't have the magic touch like Reggie or even Luke, but at least it's straight-forward. Reggie's disappearing act is complicated and delicate, and while Bobby feels radically blessed to be Reggie's Chosen Person to go to when he's like this, he sometimes wishes there was someone more competent around to handle it.

The combination of the warm soup and Bobby rubbing the back of Reggie's hand seem to help bring him back from wherever he had gone. Not all the way, and not right away, but bit by bit, he wanders back to be behind his own eyes again, blinking at Bobby, still tired and fried.

They don't talk about what happened; Bobby doesn't need to ask, knows Reggie finds it painful rather than therapeutic to share the ongoing dramas of his household. They simply sit together, Bobby wracking his brain for any other way he could be helpful.

And then he remembers.

"Are you okay if I go get something?" he asks, voice a little crackly from the late night. "I'll be right back."

Sipping at the last of the soup, Reggie nods, reluctantly letting go of Bobby's hand, and Bobby doesn't really have time to think about anything other than getting back as fast as possible.

When he does re-enter the room, Reggie's eyes turn a little curious as he sees the bag in Bobby's hands. Suddenly, the self-consciousness that had escaped Bobby for a moment all comes rushing back, but he figures there's no turning back now that Reggie has that air of expectation about him, more and more present by the minute.

"I got this for you," Bobby tries to explain, tries to keep his tone light as a feather, "Just - saw it and thought of you?" He opens the bag and pulls out the stuffed dog, still as stupidly plush and ridiculously cute as he remembers it, holding it out for Reggie to take and praying to God he doesn't look like as much of an idiot as he feels.

Reggie stares at the toy as it passes from Bobby's grip to his own like he can't believe what he's seeing. Bobby can literally feel the nervous sweat prickling at the back of his neck, but he doesn't say anything, just swallows and waits for Reggie to react.

He can see Reggie's fingers flex and smooth, feeling the softness of the fur. One arm curls almost around the toy, like a deeply buried instinct. "Is this. Um." He looks up and meets Bobby's eyes, and looks more lucid than he has since he arrived, but also guarded, suspicious in a way that doesn't suit Reggie at all. It makes Bobby's stomach sink. Mistake mistake _mistake._ "You're not-"

Then Reggie stops. Shakes his head a little bit and Bobby, consumed by panic, reaches for the toy, says, "Forget it, it was just a dumb idea—"

But Reggie pulls back, so he and the toy are out of Bobby's reach, tucking it under his chin protectively. He looks _so cute,_ Bobby wants to throw up. "You're not laughing at me, right?" Reggie interrupts, searching Bobby's face. "You wouldn't do that."

"No, no, I wouldn't -" Bobby insists, and now his sinking, nauseous stomach does a total 180-degree turn and backflips. God, he wants to beat up every bastard who ever made Reggie feel like he ought to be teased or belittled. Swallowing, and softening his voice, Bobby continues, "I'm not making _fun_ of you, Reg. Fuck, I could never."

Reggie's breathing levels, and after really looking at Bobby for another moment, he turns to bury his face in the dog's fur. Something in Bobby unspools. Comes undone. The sight of Reggie finally breathing easy. His scruffy hair and wrinkled flannel all that's visible of him from behind the toy held tight in his lap, his arms squeezing and then relaxing, fingers still combing through the fur. The horror of the night, whatever it was, is over for now. Reggie is really in the room with him.

"I just thought it might help," Bobby says lamely. It feels like absolutely not anywhere close to enough to communicate what he actually means. It's not about him seeing Reggie as a kid, or even seeing him as needing comfort. In his heart of hearts, Bobby knows Reggie is tougher, more mature than he'll ever be. He only wanted to help with Reggie's sleep, help with when Reggie drifts away and can't bring himself back, help Reggie feel safe and sweet in a way that he always should and never seems to. Help for when Bobby can't be there.

One of Reggie's hands reaches out and catches Bobby's shirt, tugging loosely. Bobby comes closer as beckoned, but isn't sure what to do until Reggie gives him a harder tug that pulls him down to give Reggie a hug. Which he does, ignoring the warmth that spreads right through him at the feeling of having Reggie and the stupid, wonderful stuffed dog bundled up in his arms.

"You know," comes Reggie's tiny, muffled voice, somewhere between Bobby's chest and the top of the toy's head, "I always wanted a puppy."

A smile tugs at Bobby's mouth without his permission. Something scarier tugs at his heart, a bigger, more serious feeling. It's something he'll address later. "Yeah," he murmurs and lets himself curl closer. "Yeah, I know. This'll have to do for now."

**Author's Note:**

> thanks for reading!! comments and kudos are always appreciated. find me on tumblr @sunsetcurvecuddles.
> 
> you can see beautiful art of reggie from this fic drawn by the amazing illgetmerope here: https://sunsetcurvecuddles.tumblr.com/post/643042956023136256/i-read-can-you-feel-the-weight-of-it-by
> 
> dissociation warning: there's a scene where reggie dissociates but it is from bobby's pov and he is grounded without encountering any harm. it's not super graphic or distressing i think, but please don't read this if descriptions of dissociation trigger it in you!! take care of yourself.


End file.
